Archive for category NaBloPoMo
The Casual Gamer
Posted by RnR in Day to Day, Gaming: Console, Gaming: MMO, Gaming: PC, NaBloPoMo, The Casual Gamer on November 1, 2011 4:02 pm
Going to start a section of the blog called ‘The Casual Gamer’.
I have been mulling over the idea of writing about the games(video mostly, but interested in some tabletop and card games) I play. I see a casual gamer as the person who plays when they can, as a stress relief or to burn small amounts of free time. There will be the occasional bender as real life allows, yet the casual gamer is far from the stereotype. This is not the child yelling for chocolate milk or the man living in his parent’s basement, covered in Cheetos dust and playing non-stop.
I’ve talked about gaming here before, but it has always been spotty and at times incoherent. There are the posts about what I was playing at the time, half-hearted attempts at reviews, and one or two rants thrown in there.
My hope here is that this new type of post will be different. That is the hope, anyway. The reality of it all is much different, as seen in past grandiose ideas. But what is life without grandiose schemes and ideas that end up falling on their face? Successful….oh yeah….that’s what life is without the falling down part…… <.< >.>
There are also ulterior motives baked into this half-baked idea (it can be called pudding if you want!). If I can stick to it, my writing and communication skills will improve. That is the major benefit I see coming from it. A secondary, and quite possibly awesome outcome, is that a small time gaming site will like ‘the cut of my jib’ and let me do some freelance reviews along the same casual gamer line.
So, the tl;dr version is that I am going to play more games and write about them, land a posh gig writing about them and then build a giant vault in the middle of town which will allow me to swim around in all the monies I will be raking in.
In all likelihood though, this won’t go anywhere. And I’m okay with that.
On a final note…it is not a coincidence that this endeavor falls upon November 1st….the same day that NaBloPoMo kicks off. And yes, I am taking another crack at it. My money says I’ll fail by the 8th
this year!
Right In Front of My Face
Posted by RnR in Computers, Day to Day, NaBloPoMo, Technology on March 9, 2011 9:56 am
Warning: Work Related
Ran into an issue recently. I have to connect via RDP (Remote Desktop Protocol) to a Server 2k8 VM that is running a SQL DB for a portion of my current project. Standard stuff, no issue.
While connected I need to run an import batch file that extracts and imports *.CAB files containing information about MS Office files. It’s all part of Microsofts OMPM application. More pretty standard stuff, once you read up on it.
Issue that I ran into was that the RDP session, once I disconnected (which allows ALL the programs running to continue) would timeout after 30 minutes and clear the session. This had the wonderful affect of stopping all running applications and batch processes.
I knew this had to be a setting. I knew it. Yet I could not find it.
Finally, after several iterations of the search term in Google, I found a forum post that, although not the exact answer I was looking for, made the way a bit clearer.
Come to find out, the answer was right in front of my face the entire time. However, due to the way MS sorts their Start Menu and subsequent sub menus, I was totally missing it.
+1 to me KNOWING that it HAD to be an easily accessible setting and not stopping until I found it.
-1 for me not paying attention.
Torn
I feel torn right now.
When I was in highschool, I feared the ‘rat race’ of the future. It was a strange fear, and something that I repressed. That’s what I tend to do with the real world things that scare me. I ignore them, hoping they go away on their own. They never do, and in fact, tend to get worse. This happens until I have to face down a much larger and more complicated problem. I’m getting better at dealing with this, but I still have a long way to go.
So this fear of the ‘rat race’ I had back then never did get resolved. I never thought to myself ‘What can I do now to avoid this in the future?’. Instead I ignored the fear, buried it, and did things to forget it. Little did I realize I was only making it worse.
I basically wanted some one else to take care of it….as you can guess, no one ever did. No one ever should have either. It was my burden to bear, and I just didn’t do it. I now pay the price for it.
I am neck deep in it now. With all the stress and nonsense that goes along with it. I dislike it, I see how I failed to avoid it, and I beat myslef up for being so lazy and naive.
I feel torn right now, because I have an opportunity to get ahead of the others, but I hate myself for even having to do it. I’m not using the backs of the others, it’s not that kind of thing. It is the fact that I dislike being in the race, but I continue to do everything to advance.
I feel torn because I am not sure that I want to do it, but I don’t know if I have any other choice.
Dream
Posted by RnR in Day to Day, NaBloPoMo, Random on March 2, 2011 11:20 am
I actually had this dream the other night, but it has stuck with me so I figure it is worth writing about. That being the case, today’s word is Dream.
A bit of a preface first. Killer aliens and monsters freak me the hell out. I saw Aliens for the first time when I was 10 and had to watch it in the middle of the day. Same goes with Predator and Predator 2. After seeing Signs, I was freaked out walking anywhere near forested areas at night. Although I can, and do, watch any of these movies when they are TV. However, I refuse to watch any Jason or Freddie movie and don’t even get me started on zombie movies. Even though I am vehemnetly anti-zombie, I always tend to linger to long when an ‘Of the Dead’ movie is on…knowing full well that sleep will not be forth coming if I continue watching. I can handle reading about zombies though. The only side affect being compulsive ‘how would I survive if..’ thinking. For instance, after reading World War Z, I began to analyze the ability to defend any location I was in from a zombie attack. Basically I’m a sucker for most these movies, even though I end up paying some price later on.
Now that you have that relevant and world view changing information, let me create the setting for you. I will draw comparisons to movies that one might have seen to help with visualization.
Commitment
Taking another crack at NaBloPoMo. The theme for March is “In A Word”. I can either choose a word to build a post around or use a word that is a good description of my life at that moment. Those are just some suggestions, but I think I can make those work.
I have tried this before with limited success, and that is why I am using the word ‘Commitment’ as my first post. I am going to commit to doing this for the month of March. It is something meaningful that I can work towards.
And, as John Scalzi has said,
But if you want to be a writer, than be a writer, for god’s sake. It’s not that hard, and it doesn’t require that much effort on a day to day basis. Find the time or make the time. Sit down, shut up and put your words together. Work at it and keep working at it. And if you need inspiration, think of yourself on your deathbed saying “well, at least I watched a lot of TV.” If saying such a thing as your life ebbs away fills you with existential horror, well, then. I think you know what to do.
Thoughts on the Train
Posted by RnR in Day to Day, NaBloPoMo, Random on November 1, 2010 1:45 pm
I travel through all these places and rarely see anyone at work. I see the sites as they were left when the whistle blew on the previous Friday. Equipment parked, lights off and left to wait for the workers return on Monday morning. And upon my return, I see the same; Equipment parked and lights off. I see what is meant to be and what was, but I rarely see what is.
The marshlands of Jersey look peaceful, juxtaposed against the factories, bridges and highways that were built in them and around them. With the rising eastern Sun framing the entire scene, a ghostly image is created that mocks our modernity, as we mock the beauty of the natural world.
I sit at a desk in a windowless office with four other employees, in an office building that saw its prime pass over twenty years ago. Very little of it is occupied on a regular basis. An emptiness permeates portions of it…sections are dark and ignored. And walking into those areas feels as if you are entering another world, one where the life was taken without any notice or fanfare. Everything just…ended.
Listening to a pair of gentleman, who appear to work together, talking in the seats behind me. It amazes me how freely they talk in such a public environment. Have I unwittingly become a member of some secret club? Is there some unwritten law of traveling in Business Class, that all information is confidential and does not leave Business Class? I am not sure that I want to be a member…and no one even bothered to tell me what the dues cost….
Follow Through
You got it. You asked us and we gave it to you.
I have just one thing to say to you now…
DON’T F*#K IT UP!
Yes We Can
Found at blurbomat
Monday is the New Laundry Day
Posted by RnR in Day to Day, NaBloPoMo, Politics on November 3, 2008 10:27 pm
Monday is the new laundry day. It corresponds with one of the two class nights of the Wife. It’s not the best day to go, as it is still pretty busy from the weekend, however it’ll do for the time being.
Thankfully, tonight, I don’t have some mom/grandma doing the laundry of a family of fifteen and using EVERY SINGLE WASHER AND DRYER up in this joint! That’s always a good time knowing that you’ll be stuck at the laundry mat until close. With only two month old magazines to read and nothing else to entertain you.
On a different note, I am pretty excited about tomorrow (11/04/2008). This will be the second presidential election I have voted in, and probably the only one where I feel that if the outcome isn’t what the polls are expecting, well then….I’d rather not think about it. All I can say is that this country, in fact the world cannot handle another four years of the same busted policies and short sighted win/lose, us/them, black/white mentality of the past eight years.
The wife and I have already sent in our absentee ballots, as neither of us will have the chance to go tomorrow (11/04/2008) and vote in person. So we’ll see what happens.
I HOPE for the best. And if that hope doesn’t deliver, well then, I might just have to take matters into my own hands….